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Cosmos to Be Reborn (Sort Of)

By Jack Bell August 28, 2009 10:11 pmAugust 28, 2009 10:11 pm

Details are extremely sketchy, but an English newspaper reported Friday that a businessman who was a former director of Tottenham Hotspur has reached an agreement to purchase the trademark of the New York Cosmos and bring about a rebirth of the team.

During the 1970s and the early ’80s the Cosmos were the pre-eminent soccer team in the North American Soccer League. The club has not played a match in more than 20 years.

The Cosmos’ name has ever since been under the control of G. Peppe Pinton, a former general manager of the team who has guarded its reputation (not to mention its prodigious collection of trophies and trinkets) at his office in suburban New Jersey.

According to a report on the Web site of the English newspaper The Daily Mail, Paul Kemsley, a former director of Tottenham, has reached an agreement with Pinton to purchase the rights to the Cosmos with the intention of rechristening the team as a traveling array of all-stars, playing matches around the world. The price of the transaction was not disclosed.

The Cosmos, a team that won multiple titles in the N.A.S.L. and featured stars like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto, remain the most recognizable name in American soccer.

Pinton has run Cosmos Soccer Camps since the team’s demise in the mid-’80s and often flirted with selling the club name to people interested in resurrecting the Cosmos, possibly as an entry in Major League Soccer. That did not happen, however, and Pinton apparently has decided it is time to sell the name because with each passing day fewer and fewer soccer fans remember the club, which some blame for the demise of the N.A.S.L. but that others recognize as a trail blazer.

I love it. Finally perhaps somebody with a character and football background to put things in perspective and focus to develope the image of a brand that should have never died. New York and soccer is nothing without the name of Cosmos attatched to it, and MLS is nothing without a New York committed. Go for the world of soccer , New York Cosmos, you should have been at the pair of the greatest a long time ago, you already were the greatest icon at one point, hurry the come back!!!

From the perspective of American Soccer, this seems like an incredible step backwards. I hope this team is not connected to Major League Soccer, and is, as proposed an Inernational team of stars. It seems like a sideshow. The Cosmos (I used to be a Cosmos Season ticket-holder) had their time and place. But the moment passed, I say after 1981 the team lost its luster. They tried to “American-ize” soccer (football) and they could not. You could no more “American-ize” soccer in the United States than you could “American-ize” the Eifel Tower in France. I think that may be its first mistake.

The NASL was a noble experiment, and those seriously connected, should be praised for their courage and investment. However, its foundations were shaky. It does beg the question: Would we have the MLS (recognized by FIFA, the NASL was not) today, if the NASL did not enjoy its marginal level of success? I’m not sure.

Makes me nervous. First of all, a Tottnumb man taking control of the name, image, everything of the team I loved as a kid is disturbing. Secondly, and most significant, this shouldn’t undermine our MLS team (who really should be called the Cosmos, anyway).

I’m with PC. If the Cosmos were coming back as an MLS franchise, that would be good for the league and for soccer in North America. I would love to see the Sounders, Earthquakes and Whitecaps take on the Cosmos again.

But if this is just a travelling team of all-stars riding the name of a storied New York soccer club, playing friendlies along the way, that’s not going to do much for anybody except line the pockets of Kemsley and Pinton.

This is good news that the cosmos is going to be reborn. I always wondered what would happen after the universe died, but I guess there’s going to be another Big Bang. Wait this story isn’t about advanced physics and cosmology? Never mind.

great….the Cosmos are to be the new Harlem Globetrotters. This country is never going to get serious about soccer. I watched two MLS teams get humiliated by Mexican sides in this week’s CONCACAF “Chanpions” League games. They were completely outclassed. If the MLS is ever going to be seen as a serious league, it starts with improving the quality of play. Having the Cosmos bounce around the world as an “American” super-team is the last thing we need.
And besides…..they never were that great to begin with. I watched them play the Rochester Lancers back in the day and I don’t remember being impressed.

how is that pinton had right to sell the name? it hasn’t been in use for quite a long time. if futbol is ever to become on par with nascar, nba, nfl as a specatator/participator, it will require some dollars to make a great marketing move like resuscitating the cosmos and putting them in the msl. (the “and 1″ geriatric farce suggested in the article should be d.o.a. and the person the guy from tottenham may not be the right guy as his financial management skills, bankroll, and vision are suspect. but even he probably now gets that it will cost real money to successfully launch and sustain a ny team with such history. plenty of brits were quite distressed when glaser bought man. u., and such fears turned out to be wasted. this is a world-wide game and if you have some money to spend, you could put together a good team that could actually handle mexican, south american, and european sides. with the right fronting and marketing, the re-born cosmos could go world-wide and staunch the deep penetration of european sides into the american marketing psyche. wow, think of it — two teams in ny — an actual darby may break out.

If this report ends up being true, it is definitely a sad moment for soccer in the USA. Even after ten plus years of MLS, I cannot think of a more recognizable footballing brand-name originating from North America then the New York Cosmos. If a new NYC-based franchise using this name ever came to be in the MLS, I can guarantee that there would be a fresh injection of energy that would rival the one the league received at the beginning of the David Beckham era.

Commentators on this blog who want this name to shrivel-up and die seem to forget just how important the Cosmos were to generating interest in the beautiful game stateside. As a young boy growing up in New Jersey, I caught the tail-end of this franchise’s existence, even getting to see Diego Maradona play at Giants Stadium thanks to a tournament hosted by this franchise. The number of New Jersey natives that perform at the top-end of international soccer (Jozy Altidore and Tim Howard for example) are definitely a testament to the legacy the Cosmos left behind.

The MLS should be working overtime to get a Cosmos franchise to play in NYC, but I’m worried that Red Bull is doing everything in their power to keep their monopoly on professional soccer in this town.

Two team in the NYC metro area would be great. However, during this tough economy nobody is going to start a new team in New York without their own stadium. Breaking ground for a new stadium after 2 new stadiums built for baseball (3 if you count the New Giants Stadium) is just not going to happen in these uncertain times.This is not to say when the economy improves in 7 to 10 years a 2nd MLS may not be vialbe. For now, unfortunately we have the underperforming RBNY. However, I think their fortunes will improve. Try visiting the new stadium in Harrison. The NYC subway from midtown to the PATH is about 25 – 30 minutes. We couldn’t do much better to Mets or Yanks. The stadium in Harrison is top drawer (I’ve visited).

Lastly, a team in Queens would serve a working class community for whom many work in service related jobs during the weekends. Attendance would suffer. The timing is not right.

As a compromise, two New York Teams who share Red Bull Arena as a common stadium, while waiting for the right time to move to Queens when the time is right. Just like the Home Depot Center in Carson City and just like AC and Inter-Milan.

I would be thrilled to see the Cosmos truly reborn, as an MLS franchise in NYC. The report is disappointing because the Mail cannot get right the name of the league or its abbreviation. MSL — as far as I know that refers to Maryland youth soccer. I guess the Mail is too busy covering the Premier English League (known worldwide as the PEL) to know anything about USA soccer.

I have to agree with Dave Brett (#5 above). Are we absolutely certain that Peppe Pinton owns the rights to the New York Cosmos name? How & when did he acquire it, and is there any legitimate documentation to prove this? As far as I’m concerned, Pinton is nothing more than a thoroughly annoying, self-serving con artist/opportunist who had a direct hand in the demise of the North American Soccer League. I bet that he’s downright thrilled to see his name in the newspapers again.

I just can’t believe after all these years, THIS is the guy he is selling to. Another complete, misguided joke. The team belongs in the MLS, and I was holding out hope that the proposed second team in the NY area would be the Cosmos. So much for that.

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